Men's college hockey: Up and down weekend

By Al Pike

Monday

Mar 29, 2010 at 3:15 AM

ALBANY, N.Y. — It was a microcosm of the season.

In the space of 24 hours over the weekend the University of New Hampshire hockey team showed two distinct sides of its enigmatic personality, winning a game it was expected to lose and losing a game it was expected to win.

After beating No. 2 Cornell, 6-2, Friday night in the first round of the NCAA tournament, the third-seeded Wildcats bowed out of the playoffs Saturday with a 6-2 loss to No. 4 Rochester Institute of Technology in the final of the East Regional.

The games were remarkably similar not only in score but also in the way they unfolded. UNH scored twice 26 seconds apart against Cornell to transform a 1-0 deficit into a 2-1 lead and seize the momentum of that contest.

One win away from a berth in the Frozen Four in a 1-1 game, the Wildcats experienced the other size of a quick-strike offense when RIT connected twice in 13 seconds and three times in 1:34 during the second period to take control of Saturday night's game.

"This is one of the best team's I've been a part of," said senior co-captain Bobby Butler. "To come so close, 1-1, that turning point really hurts. It was a great year. I just wish it had ended a little different."

UNH surrendered four unanswered goals before Blake Kessel scored with 2:29 remaining in the third period to make it 5-2.

"That happened so darn quick in the second period," said UNH coach Dick Umile. "It went from a 1-1 game to 4-1 real quick. We'd done it a couple times this season when we bounced back against BC from three goals, so it wasn't over going into the third period. But we needed to score early. They made a couple saves and we probably didn't get as many quality shots as we needed to. You've got to give them credit. They played pretty good defense."

Although UNH had outscored the opposition 20-3 in the third period of the previous 11 games, the Wildcats couldn't mount a comeback against RIT, which is going to its first Frozen Four after five years at the Division I level.

"We had our chances," said senior co-captain Peter LeBlanc. "The bounces didn't go our way. It's tough to come back against a good team 4-1 in the third period."

UNH was 2-4-6 when trailing after two periods entering Saturday's game, including a pair of ties against Boston College and a win over Vermont in the opener of a best-of-three Hockey East quarterfinal series.

The Wildcats also scored four times in the third period Friday night to pull away from Cornell.

"We came back a couple times in the third period this season," LeBlanc said. "Twice against BC and we had a good offensive outburst against Vermont in the first game of our series. We were trying to get that going and we were trying to do some of the things we did in those games, but unfortunately we couldn't come back."

Despite the inconsistency throughout the season, UNH qualified for the NCAA tournament for the ninth consecutive year and reached the national quarterfinals for the second year in a row after getting eliminated in the first round in four of the previous five years.

RIT took the game away from UNH in the second period, outscoring the Wildcats, 3-0, and outshooting them, 18-6.

"You've got to give credit to these teams," Umile said. "Anybody that gets in the NCAA tournament has got to be a pretty good hockey team. It's all about playing well for four games. We came out (Friday) night and played great. I never thought we wouldn't play well. We didn't play our best game in the second period (Saturday night), that's for sure. I thought they frustrated us and we didn't respond to it very well in the second period."

Umile, whose club won the Hockey East regular-season title for the third time in four years, praised the leadership of Butler, the Hockey East player of the year, and LeBlanc.

"The disappointing part is that it's been a very enjoyable team to coach," Umile said. "They took this team that probably a lot of people didn't think was going to go very far. We were real close. A couple minutes in the second period and our whole season turned around."

UNH (18-14-7) failed to win at least 20 games for the first time since the 1995-96 season when it went 12-18-4 after which the Wildcats then embarked on a streak of 13 straight seasons with 20 or more wins.

Their only chance to keep the streak alive was to come from behind and beat the Tigers, who extended their nation's best winning streak to 12 straight games in the first meeting between the programs.

"The emotion didn't hit me right away," LeBlanc said. "We were still hoping to get back in the game. We still had some time left in the second period to get back. In the third period with time running down it starts to hit you it's going to be a pretty tall mountain to climb. Once you get in the dressing room it really hits you. It's tough. Only one team in (the playoffs) gets to end their season with a win, so it's tough."

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